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This One Goes to Eleven: Weekly metal roundup

Plenty of diamonds in the rough this week, so grab the canary and hop a mine cart headed down.

WHAT TO HEAR: Given TOGTE’s local beat, I usually make an effort to lead with local bands when appropriate/applicable, and legendary noise rock maniacs Unsane certainly qualify…especially when they’re dropping their first new record in five years. Following 2012’s Wreck, Sterilize (Southern Lord) is exactly what you’d hope for from an Unsane record—caustic, catchy, and seemingly custom made for the slam section of some grainy, VX-shot East Coast skate video (we’ve all seen “Scrape” right?). Needless to say if you’ve ridden the L in the past 12 months, the 90s are back, and thanks to vets like Unsane, it’s finally time to drag noise rock back with them. Check it out via Noisey.

Per usual, there’s plenty of the black stuff on offer this week, but my pick of the charred litter is Asagraum‘s Potestas Magicum Diaboli (Kvlt). Combining the hypnotic surge of formless beasts like One Master and the melodicism of atmospheric contemporaries (Drudkh, Imperium Dekandenz, Wolvserpent), Asagraum carve out a compelling middle ground Diaboli, droning without becoming drowsy. Focused song structures and articulate production go a long way help to further the vision, which is certainly one the week’s more compelling, so make sure to give the Baltic-based outfit a listen here.

After that, check out Den Förstfödde (Folter Records), the full-length long-running one-man black metal act Arckanum. Hailing from Sweden, Arckanum’s is a lo-fi second wave odyssey, and when listened to against the backdrop of everything else we call “second wave” today, you realize how minimalistic and, yes, punk, true d and blast beat-driven black metal truly was in the early 90s before Bergtatt came along and changed everything. And since we’re on the subject of punk, French outfit Celeste apply that immediate, caustic approach to their breed of angular sludge on Infidèle(s) (Denovali), which comes seething out from the European underbelly today. Check it out via bandcamp.

On dirty hippy doom fronts, meanwhile, Swedish Sabbath apostles Monolord lurch forth with their latest bong hit, Rust (RidingEasy Records), before Loincloth, ready for the hunt with Psalm of the Morbid Whore (Southern Lord), which adds some proggy instrmetal insanity to the weekly mix. Pro Tip: Loincloth is best listened to (full stream on YouTube) while a wearing a Manowar t-shirt (and nothing else).

Now for exercise in contrasts (like spinach, this shit is good for you, even if you hate it), Grave Pleasures—the gloomy, doomy post-punk spin-off of Oranssi Pazuzu—drops their sophomore studio offering, Motherblood (Century Media) today, while proto deathgrind monsters Blood (ahh, the good ol’ days when just name your band “Blood” and be done with it) return with their new, independently released full length, Inferno. Flip those two around and you have the perfect warm-up/cool-down for the next time you workout in like six months (winter is coming, amirite?).

Finally Jag Panzer wrap everything with a thoroughly ambitious, obscenely catchy batch of NWOBHM-influenced power metal, The Deviant Chord (Jag Panzer), that will have wearing chain mail to the grocery store in no time.